Nintendo Announces Discontinuation of Club Nintendo

Nintendo announced this morning that it will be discontinuing its Club Nintendo rewards program.

Club Nintendo officially launched in North America six years ago (though it existed in a slightly different form for a few years before that.) Through it, players were able to register eligible titles for Nintendo’s home and handheld consoles and earn coins, which could then be spent on exclusive rewards and, eventually, downloadable software.

According to Nintendo, the reason it is discontinuing Club Nintendo is to “focus on planning a new customer loyalty program.” No information on this new program has been revealed at this time, but the last day fans will be able to register titles and earn coins through the current Club Nintendo system is March 31. Club Nintendo members will have until June 30 of this year to spend their coins. All remaining coins will be deleted on July 1.

What do you think about the news of Club Nintendo’s closure? Are you excited to see the new loyalty program that Nintendo will be rolling out? Let us know in the comments!

3 Responses to “Nintendo Announces Discontinuation of Club Nintendo”

Ten bucks says the new “loyalty program” is a paid subscription system.

The biggest problem I have with this is that it came without warning. Really? Games released after TODAY can’t be redeemed for coins? I was planning on grabbing Splatoon in May to put me over the bar for Platinum rewards.

Ah, well. I’m somewhat optimistic that the dozens of titles they’ll supposedly be flooding the rewards section with will be games that I really want for my collection. (If not, I guess that’s tough luck for me)

To be honest, I can see myself actually paying for a subscription service for Nintendo if it was done right. A subscription with full access to the Virtual Console library would be worth it in my opinion!

Definitely going to be getting rid of my stars as soon as possible though (the EU equivalent of coins I believe).

I hope whatever comes next is a logical extension of both Club Nintendo and the Deluxe Digital Promotion. I’ll also hope against hope that the different territories will get their acts together, so all the best stuff isn’t Japan-only.

Cutting off coins and announcing this before having any details is lame. “Dozens of downloadable rewards in February”, well that’s great, maybe, unless they’re all stuff I already have.

The big silver lining for me is that Flipnote Studio 3D is still happening. And it hasn’t been renamed “New Flipnote Studio”.